Yosuke woke up that morning with a start, his blankets being kicked onto the floor and also, he was tangled inside one. His sweat indicated he woke from a nightmare, but he jumped out anyway and started pulling on his uniform, muttering to himself over how high the sun had risen. He couldn't be late on his second day! The moron king would slap him with a thick book, right in the back of his head. He winced at some memory before he hurried outside, climbing onto his bike and pedaling off, hoping his cap wouldn't fly off his head.

"Don't be late, don't be late-!" He'd just have to eat a bigger lunch and hope he had time to use the outhouse during that time too, since he didn't do either in his rush to get out the house. He kept pedaling and tried to steer the bike down a smaller path, feeling it jerk and skid harshly with a screech. He tried to put his foot down to stop it, but the bike threw him instead, landing him in the middle of the school's trash pile.

"Yuck..." He groaned, rubbing his head. He somehow ended up in a big pile of garbage, filled with mud and rotten food. It was squishy and smelled rank, sickly-sweet. He tried to get out but just felt his legs touch the air, shaking and waving them around wildly. "Hello? Can someone help me out?" Maybe he'd just be stuck there forever, destined to be ground into compost-

"Here," He felt arms wrap around his waist and yank him out hard, resulting in the two crashing into the street with Yosuke on top.

"Whoa! S-Sorry!" He quickly got up and dusted himself off, bowing at the boy. "You're the new transfer student, right? Narukami Yu-kun! I remembered!" He smiled and stood his bike back up.

"Are you okay?" Yu asked.

"Yeah! Just surprised. I didn't think it'd happen..." Yosuke chose to leave the obvious unsaid, and Yu seemed to oblige, looking at the bicycle instead. "You like? It's a chick magnet! You have one, they line up just to see it!" He smirked.

"Really?" Yu raised an eyebrow.

"Girls here love stuff from the West because they see it so rarely, like bicycles. This one's a bit old but it does its job," He sat back on it and scooted forward a bit. "You want to ride it with me? We don't want to be late!"

Well, later...

To his surprise, Yu nodded and stood on the back, wobbling and grabbing Yosuke's shoulders. "Just don't go super fast,"

"I make no promises!" Yosuke smirked and pedaled, grunting due to the extra weight and pedaling slower with his legs pounding, but they got there soon enough and Yu jumped off.

The two walked to class and Yosuke took his seat, already sensing the moron king was agitated just by the way he spoke. He slammed his head down on his desk, only lifting it up whenever he came by to make it seem like he was doing his work. The girls chattered lowly in their own little reading groups. He dipped his pen into too much ink and it blotted over his notes. Shoot. Math and the scientific formulas were hard for him to properly grasp. Lunch was simple cucumber sushi rolls, then right back to class. At least he got to use the outhouse when he was done eating.

The monotony would kill him. Someone save him from it!

After school, Yosuke spotted Yu putting his books into his bag and walked over, smiling. "How are you liking this place so far?" He was from the city too, so surely the adjustment period was a rough one. He remembered his own move and how it took him a month to understand the outdated dialects and get used to the sights of so many odd outfits. Even out in the country everyone tried to dress their best, and some adventurous women took it further with full-on European dress. He'd never forget the first time he saw a dress with a huge behind and wished to give it a big smack.

"It's good, but I feel like I still haven't seen everything yet." Yu smiled.

"Trust me, you've likely seen it all! It's pretty though, right? Out here, the air is cleaner, the food tastes better...the country has its charms, you know?" He stretched a bit. "Guess what our most famous dish is. Grilled steak! Emperor Meiji only just lifted the taboo like fifteen or sixteen years ago, but I guess our town just couldn't get enough of it! There's this great place I know where it's super cheap too!"

"You'd treat me?" Yu asked in disbelief, but Yosuke waved him off.

"I owe you one for this morning! If it weren't for you, I would've been made into compost!"

"Where's my apology for my book?" Chie put her hands on her hips boyishly, staring him down. He sighed.

"You're still on about that..." The pages were super thin and delicate, how was that his fault?! "Why do you show up whenever I bring up food?"

"I think you owe me, and if Yukiko-chan were here she'd agree!"

"How's it going with her? She inherit the inn yet? Oh! Did she get proposed to yet?" Yosuke asked, trying to divert the topic away and knowing Chie loved Yukiko just as much as she did food.

"No...she's still training and she rejects every man she sees! Not that I blame her, most are creepy weirdos," She sighed. "Anyway, let's go!"

"You might as well invite her if you're going to mooch off me..." He grumbled, walking out of the room and ignoring Yu's stifled laughs.

"I would, but she doesn't eat meat. It goes against her beliefs."

"Aren't you just as much of a Shinto as she is?"

"No way! She's way more strict with it than me."

Since Chie had come along, he'd have to whip them both up something quick and easy at Junes. He didn't want to, he wanted to give Yu a good first impression of the town, but Chie's freeloading appetite ruined that idea for him. Maybe the two of them could try again at a later date.

Chie and Yu talked happily together for the whole walk as Yosuke walked into Junes, leading them over to a small area with tables and long benches like in a mess hall. He was thankful, for the first time but likely not the last, that they sold Western-style snacks so he cut up some cold bread, cheddar, and sausages with glass bottles of cola all on a tray, presenting it to them.

"Hey, they don't have grilled steak here! You just took us to your place!" Chie accused the moment he returned. He slid her bottle over to her.

"This stuff is way cheaper and since I'm buying for two now..." He slid Yu his bottle too.

"You own Junes?" Yu asked, making Yosuke nearly choke.

"No, no! Not really," He handed them their stacks of food. "My dad is this big inventive man. Keeps talking about how he's going to reinvent shopping. He came up with this idea of a big group of stalls owned by one person and invested in it. He saw an opportunity to open up in a small town like this, so he moved Mom and I out here from the city. A different one, but a city nonetheless." He thought of his dad then, a tall man with a big smile and a trimmed coat for every occasion. He spent most of his time in his office at home, looking through taxes or ordering more goods for the store, leaving his wife and Yosuke to manage the store itself, though most of that fell on Yosuke.

"But why'd he move everyone out?" Yu asked.

"Mom's a housewife, so she's gotta take care of things. And Dad's weird. He said the countryside would be good for me because of how fresh and clean everything is. I didn't have much of a choice, but I like it here," The girls were pretty and the food was nice. Shouldn't that be all he needed? "Here's to your new life in Inaba!" Yosuke raised his bottle, and the three clanked them together and took big sips. The bubbles tickled his throat.

"Ever since they've moved here, I haven't used the other stalls in the shopping district much. It's too cumbersome. But then they started to close..." Chie trailed off and ate some of her food.

"It's not entirely Junes' fault. It's the tides of progress!" Yosuke sipped some more cola when he heard soft footsteps on the dirt, looking over to see Konishi sit by herself at one of the empty tables, her hands folded up in her lap. She wore her usual outdated winter colors with the loud happi once more. He perked up. "Konishi!"

"Who's that?" He heard Yu ask as he hurried over to where she was sitting, the same melancholy vibe to her.

"Konishi Saki-san. She works here as a greeter because her family's liquor business isn't doing super well." Chie tried to keep her voice down.

"Hana-chan!" Konishi smiled politely at him.

"You look tired," Yosuke greeted.

"I am so glad it's time for my break!" She looked over at the other table. "Did you bring your friends here to get some popularity?"

He just laughed. "You hurt me deeply! But your eyes...are you just tired? Something on your mind?"

She stared straight ahead, frowning ever so slightly. "Just tired..I wish I didn't take that walk yesterday..." She looked over at Yu drinking more cola, widening her eyes. "Is that the new transfer student? From the city? I should go introduce myself..." Konishi stood up without hesitating and walked over to Yu, giving him a polite bow. Yosuke shook his head. That was Konishi for you. Dropping everything and putting on a smile just to care for others.

"You're from the city like Hana-chan too, hm? I hope you two will get along. He has so few friends..." She tilted her head.

"H-Hey! I've got plenty of friends! She's just joking!" Yosuke blushed, heat on his face. "I get along with everyone!"

"Sometimes he's nosy so you have to be blunt with him," That made her giggle a little bit, making Yosuke's heart flutter. Even with her pleasant mood, her eyes still seemed far-away. "He's a good person though,"

"I just met him yet I know it to be true." Yu nodded.

"Back to work I go..." Konishi bowed once more in departure and walked off; Yosuke tried to put up his hand to stop her, but he just missed touching the back of her happi. He sat back down in defeat.

"She says I'm nosy, but she's a big gossiper!" He smiled. "She treats me just like her baby brother at home, always looking out for me."

"So you like her in a different way, huh? The daughter of a liquor family going through hard times due to the push to ban alcoholic drinks, the son of merchants recently uplifted by the class reforms...a love story set during Emperor Meiji's reign...it's so romantic!" Chie swooned, making him blush more.

"I-It's not like that! I just think she's nice, that's all!" So what if his heart fluttered at her laughs and he wished to play with her curls and found her to be sweet? Isn't that just how men were supposed to feel over girls? He drank more of his cola.

"What was that thing you mentioned to Amagi-chan the other day?" Yu asked Chie, who looked up from her almost empty plate.

"Huh? Oh yeah! The Other Realm...if you take a photo or even just stare at one at Midnight when it's raining, it'll be super weird. The photo will warp and if you try to pick it up, you'll be transported to the world of spirits!" She wiggled her fingers around. "Spooky, right?"

Yosuke hanged his head. "Here I thought you'd say something useful and not made-up,"

"What makes you think I'm making it up?!" She challenged. "It'll rain tonight, so go find a photograph in your house and look at it!"

"Nothing will happen because it's made-up," He insisted. "Not like that death! Do you guys think she truly got murdered? What if the killer is still walking around here now?" He couldn't prevent a chuckle from escaping his lips at the thought of something interesting happening. Chie just glared at him.

"I'm the childish one?! Let's all try the Other Realm tonight and see who's right!"

"Fine, I will! And we'll put it to rest when I'm the right one!" He took one last swig of his cola and slammed it down on the table as a final effect.

"I'm home..." Yosuke peeked into the entryway and saw no-one, so he headed into their expansive living room with just a table and simple plants in geometric pots filling up every corner.

"Good evening!" His mother smiled at him, an orange-haired woman in a simple short-sleeved peach kimono. "You woke up late, didn't you? You didn't eat my breakfast!"

"I couldn't be late, Mom! They'd close the gate and this bad teacher I got would hit me with a book right in the middle of my forehead!" He sighed at her stern pout. "I'll get seconds tomorrow. Is Dad in his office?"

"As he always is." She took a seat in the corner and began mending. Yosuke took off his haori and cap and hung them up by the door with his shoes, finally stepping into the main part of the house.

"Did any newspapers or pamphlets come today?" He spotted the daily paper placed neatly on the table and flipped through it.

"Just the usual." His mom didn't look up from her work, so he just continued to flip through as he heard heavy rain drum on the roof.

Should he try it that night? Chie was right about the rain...no, he wouldn't give her that satisfaction! Besides, the forecast predictions were put in the paper too, so she didn't even guess anything herself.

One page that caught his attention was an interview with Konishi, but the written tone made her sound more perplexed by the whole thing. She went out for a walk and came across Yamano's corpse. His eyes widened. Was that why she seemed so distant that day? Maybe he'd ask her about it tomorrow...but then everyone else would know too. Poor girl.

The town's official picture series this time contained a detailed and colored drawing of Yamano, her smirk only partly visible from her side pose. Most of the focus was given to her kimono which exposed her pale neck, and the text above the image went into crude jokes over her affair and her career, mocking the idea of working women in general. He shook his head; some of it was funny, but it gave him a weird feeling to just openly mock the dead like that.

"I'm going to bed." He informed his mom, who tried to say something about dinner before he headed into his bedroom.

It was pretty meager with a cot, but he also had several cushions tossed into one corner to be a makeshift sitting area and a big desk his dad sent from America for him to use.

"Who even has pictures..." He took out some matches and lit up his small lamp. He then held it out, rummaging through his desk to see if he had anything he just forgot about at random. The rain picked up and several times his room was illuminated by lighting and shaken by thunder. "Got it...!" He pulled out an old photograph from a decade ago someone at his old school took as part of a project. It was of some trees, but it'd work, right? Chie didn't specify, she just said a picture, so if it didn't work, it was all her fault!

He moved the lamp closer to the photo, trying to see if there was anything unusual about it, shaking it in the light.

"Come on!" He groaned and started to set it down before the flicker of something caught his attention. He moved the lamp even closer and saw the frozen image of a distressed girl, paused in mid-run. She matched the grainy style, yet she still shimmered in an uncanny way. Those curls looked way too familiar. He set the lamp down on his desk and tried to touch the girl before his whole hand slipped into the picture.

"W-What...?!"

He yanked his hand out and fell hard, his foot hitting his desk and making it clatter loudly. A huge gust of wind slammed against his window, shoving it open and showering him with hot rain. Yosuke quickly sat up and pulled the window closed, breathing heavily. He picked the picture up and saw it had returned to normal.

"I'm dreaming..." No way he just got sucked into a photograph almost! This was some sort of elaborate trick Chie was pulling on him. Maybe she even got Yu in on it too! Tomorrow at school, he'd give those two a piece of his mind! Served them right for playing him as a fool!

That was for tomorrow though. The storm seemed to have died down somewhat so he shoved the picture to the back of his drawer, changed into a white robe, turned the lamp off, and collapsed into bed instantly.

-Western items were hot commodities during the Meiji era, being collected by Japanese people just to be seen as cool. The most popular objects were bicycles and umbrellas, Western umbrellas for rain, not the oil umbrellas already used there. Most didn't know what they were used for and just bought them to gloat and show them off to their friends. Another popular thing was milk. Japanese people would impress their friends by drinking milk in large amounts.

-On that similar note, eating meat was deemed taboo for eons throughout Japanese history due to both Buddhism and Shintoism practices. If one did dare indulge, they'd need a special talisman blessed by the god of hunting. However, to show they were similar to the West, in 1872 Emperor Meiji ate a whole meal with meat to encourage his subjects to eat meat too. A lot of groups, primarily religious, were angered by this and waited in front of the palace gates, hoping to overrun the palace. However, nothing came of that. Most people were still hesitant to add meat to their diets, especially more traditional ones, but others embraced the new diet changes as a sign of modernity.

-A happi is an informal thin jacket worn over kimono for either gender. They're in bright colors, though usually blue, and feature an ad or name on the back. Nowadays they're primarily associated with festivals, but they are also used to advertise companies. To give Junes more of a historic feel, I've made the employees wear bright red/blue/yellow happi over their regular clothes with 'Junes: We're the future of shopping!' on the back.

-Chie's referring to two different events here. Firstly, the alcohol bans. Alcohol was freely drunk throughout the Edo era in particular, but with the Meiji era, Western religious and women's rights groups begun to blame alcohol abuse for the rampant domestic abuse, infidelity, diseases, and other immoral behavior, telling people who made and/or sold alcohol to stop. Some Japanese women got in on this too, making life hard for people who worked with alcohol as people showed up to yell at them or destroy their wares. A reform was successful to limit who could sell alcohol and from where, but it wasn't fully banned.

Secondly, the class reforms. Japan used to have a rigid class system that was composed of the Emperor on top, his court, the Shogun who had the actual power, the daimyo, the samurai, the peasants, the artisans, and then finally the merchants. The last four were organized due to how much they contributed to society, which is why the merchants were last due to only selling the goods of other people, not producing anything themselves. Several reforms intended to keep the merchants 'in their place' actually just resulted in them getting more wealth than some samurai, earning their ire. The classes were hereditary, so if your father was a merchant or samurai, then you'd be a merchant or samurai too. The structure was done away with in 1868 as a way of making society more equal, but the stigmas remained for decades.

-Part of helping foster literacy among the working class were these pamphlets of several pages delivered to houses, a precursor to magazines. They discussed more sensational news such as murders and affairs and thus most found them to be headline chasing garbage for the lower class, especially as many of them did report on famous murders, making them super exaggerated and gratuitous. An interesting feature were the huge color spreads they did, usually of a super gruesome crime scene or oversexualized model or geisha.

-Mayumi's kimono is focused on the back of her neck due to that area being seen as erotic to Japanese people. Genitals and breasts were seen often so they didn't often carry the same erotic nature as an uncovered neck did. Thus erotica of the time often emphasized the neck while the kimono oiran and geisha wore were designed to show off the back of the neck.